Braised springbok shanks with pumpkin fritters
Ingredients
- 45ml (3 tbsp) vegetable oil
- 4 springbok shanks
- 2 onions, quartered
- 3 celery sticks, chopped
- 1 litre white wine
- 1 litre good-quality beef stock
- 125ml (½ cup) verjuice or moskonfyt
- 4 bay leaves
- 15ml (1 tbsp) ground cardamom
- seedless grapes, halved, to serve
Fritters
- 500ml (2 cups) pumpkin, cooked and mashed
- 60g (½ cup) cake flour
- salt, to taste
- 5ml (1 tsp) ground cinnamon
- 10ml (2 tsp) baking powder
- 30ml (2 tbsp) sugar
- 2 large eggs
- oil, for frying
Instructions
Heat the oil in a deep, heavy-based pot and lightly brown the shanks on all sides. Stir in the onions, celery, wine, stock, verjuice, bay leaves and cardamom. Simmer until the meat is tender and falling off the bone, for about 8 hours. (Game is very tough and needs a lot of time and patience before it is tender and soft.)
For the fritters, blend the pumpkin,flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder
and sugar in a food processor and mix well. Add the eggs and mix until a thick batter is formed – it should almost hold its shape.Heat a little oil in a greased, non-stick pan and drop in heaped tablespoons of the batter. Fry until firm and golden before flipping the fritters over to cook on the other side. They are ready when springy to the touch and no batter pushes out of the sides.
Serve the springbok hot, sprinkled with the grapes and with the fritters on the side.
Notes
To drink: Saronsberg Provenance Shiraz 2008
